In standard silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, n-type field effect transistors (nFETs) use an As or P (or another donor) doped n-type polysilicon layer as a gate electrode that is deposited on top of a silicon dioxide or silicon oxynitride gate dielectric layer. The gate voltage is applied through this polysilicon layer to create an inversion channel in the p-type silicon underneath the gate oxide layer.
In future technology, silicon dioxide or silicon oxynitride dielectrics will be replaced with a gate material that has a higher dielectric constant. These materials are known as “high k” materials with the term “high k” denoting an insulating material whose dielectric constant is greater than about 4.0, preferably greater than about 7.0. The dielectric constants mentioned herein are relative to a vacuum unless otherwise specified. Of the various possibilities, hafnium oxide, hafnium silicate, or hafnium silicon oxynitride may be the most suitable replacement candidates for conventional gate dielectrics due to their excellent thermal stability at high temperatures.
Silicon metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) fabricated with a hafnium-based dielectric as the gate dielectric suffer from a non-ideal threshold voltage when n-MOSFETs are fabricated. This is a general problem, and in particular, when the MOSFET consists of HfO2 as the dielectric and TiN/polySi as the gate stack, the threshold voltage is in the 0.45 to 0.7 V range typically after standard thermal treatments. Ideally, the threshold voltage for long channel nFETs should be around 0 to 0.2V or so.
In view of the above-mentioned problem with prior art Si MOSFETs that include a Hf-based dielectric or other high k dielectric, there is a need for providing a method and structure that is capable of stabilizing the flatband voltages and threshold voltages in semiconductor structures that contain such high k gate dielectric materials.